The decision to send off a goalkeeper for patting an opposing striker on the backside has turned the Honduran football league into a worldwide laughing stock, so says the director of first division club CD Marathon.

In what surely must be a footballing first, the game between Marathon and Real Sociedad in the Honduran top flight on Oct. 12 saw Marathon goalkeeper Junior Morales sent off by the referee for gently patting the backside of Real striker Eris Hernandez.